Capability Mapping

Once business architecture starts getting traction within an organization, there often comes a question: “Does IT have a business architecture?” This installment of StraightTalk explores this concept of “the business architecture of IT.”

In this StraightTalk installment, we will explore how business architecture can help to architect ecosystems. The idea of business ecosystems is a huge topic unto itself, so we’ll highlight a few key ideas here in our usual StraightTalk style and then let you dream big.

In this installment of StraightTalk, we return to the idea of business objects, and the important role they play throughout an organization’s business architecture – and why it matters. We will do some serious condensing here of the BIZBOK® Guide to help you put the pieces together and understand how it all works. Why? Well, not for the sake of theory. That’s not what StraightTalk is about. We’re about helping to build a common understanding so that we can all move forward in unison. And architect great things for our organizations and societies, which is the point.

This StraightTalk installment shines a light on the realities of capability mapping and helps us to interpret some key concepts in the BIZBOK® Guide in an effort to move us forward in unison and architect great things for our organizations and societies.

This installment gives you the straight talk on some serious dos and don’ts for establishing a business architecture practice within an organization. We’ll ground our conversation by reflecting on a fundamental concept of the business architecture discipline — often misunderstood — that will assist in guiding you and help you to stay on the right path.

This installment of StraightTalk focuses on how to deal with legacy business architecture challenges (a.k.a. you realize the business architecture knowledgebase you built is not quite right). This is a common situation for business architecture teams which have been at this for awhile—though there are important lessons to heed here for new teams as well.

Okay, time to go back to business architecture school. Having our business architecture written down is at the heart of us being able to do cool stuff with it, so we better talk a little more about mapping it out.

In this StraighTalk installment, we’re going to talk about the “core” business architecture domains. That means those four boxes in the middle of our favorite diagram below.